White Jesus

The other day in religion class we watched “Jesus of Nazareth.” Something that caught my attention was just how white and European Jesus looked. Now I was raised as a christian, and every picture of Jesus that I had seen while growing up was of his as white and blue eyed.

The movie took this to a new level, making his eyes glow blue. It was as if he was radiating white blue eyed-ness, like some subtle Nazi master race propaganda.

Blue eyes is a genetic characteristic native to Europe and sometimes Northern Africa, not the middle east where Jesus is from. People in the middle east would also have had a darker skin tone, something more akin to olive, not Caucasian white. And don’t forget, Jesus was a jew, so he would have had their genetic characteristics as well.

Not the wonderful white savior you thought eh? There is an interesting article on how they came up with the above likeness of Jesus here.